[HPforGrownups] Re: Diversity in Literature & Media (WAS book differences)

[rosie]

No: HPFGUIDX 40609

I said:
> Describing a character just as "black" only really makes sense in 
>Situation 1 - where we should assume from the setting that all the 
>other characters are white. In Britain, this is not the case (well, 
>not in most communities), and it clearly isn't at Hogwarts. Doing 
>this makes Hogwarts seem *more* monocultural because it implies 
>that we are in Situation 1.

Cindy said:
"Here, I disagree.  I'll let you in on a little secret, Rosie. ;-) I have been to London, and so I know that London is very diverse.  I 
haven't spent any appreciable time in other parts of the UK.  And I would have bet actual *money* that there is almost no racial diversity at all in Scotland or other parts of the UK that are less urban than London.  That is one reason, I suspect, why Lee Jordan's dreadlocks didn't register with me as a conclusive indication that he was black."

Um, I'm not trying to be rude, but could you just explain this to me - I don't understand. You thought that most parts of the UK were pretty much all-white, with the exception of London & other major cities, right, and you thought that most of Scotland was all-white too? And this meant that Hogwarts would be all-white, because it's located in (probably) Scotland? I don't quite follow this because don't we know that students come from all over the UK, probably lots of them from London (West Ham, Kings Cross, Diagon Alley, etc etc)? And what about people like Parvati and Cho.. did you think they must be white too, if it wasn't explicitly stated?

Cindy said:
"In addition, I would have been quite sure that you wouldn't find *any* black people at a British boarding school.  After all, my experience with British boarding schools is that these are the places where you will find members of the Royal Family.  ;-)

So, no.  I disagree that stating Dean Thomas' race in the U.S. version of the book implies that Hogwarts is more monocultural than JKR intended it to be.  In the U.K., maybe.  In the U.S., no."  

and

"Fair enough.  As I said before, you seem to understand that boarding schools in the UK are diverse, which is something I didn't know.  But if most Brits would assume Hogwarts was racially diverse, and if readers in the U.S. might *not* make that assumption, then doesn't this cry out for some sort of change to advise U.S. readers of what their UK counterparts already know? " 

and

"For a U.S. reader like me, it is the *only* definitive indication in the first book that Hogwarts 
has black students -- something you had sufficient information to assume and something I didn't."

I mean, fair enough if people over in America understand very little about the UK, but how far would you take this? Would you get all the classic works of literature, maybe set in other countries, and alter them to make them understandable to the modern, US reader? 

I have just finished my English Literature GCSE (apparently, it's about the same as the PSAT, it's the school leaving exam you take at 16) and a big part of appreciating the books we read was finding out about the society, attitudes, and so on of the setting and time. For example, we read "A View From The Bridge" (a play set in Red Hook, New York), and "Gulliver's Travels". 

This meant researching the politics and concerns of Jonathon Swift's time, for example, and understanding the issues that were affecting people in early 20th century Red Hook.  To start off with, I didn't know too much about for example what was going on that affected Swift, and without understanding that, you don't get the full measure out of the book. It was necessary to actually read some things, do some research, and so on, to gain a deeper appreciation of the book. I absolutely could not imagine having those books bastardised just to make them "easier to understand". How *lazy* would that be? Some people in my class didn't know the word "stenographer", as that's an American word, but they were happy to use a dictionary. They probably got more out of it from being exposed to a new word. I think the play would really have lost its essence if we'd had it "translated" into "typist". 

You made some good points especially about Angelina, thanks, and I don't want to argue with you and drag this discussion on into the tiniest details - I'm more interested in the wider issue of whether books should be changed and so on. 

Interested to hear your thoughts, and if you think this is going OT, Cindy, Amandageist, or anyone, feel free to email me off list as this is, to me, an interesting topic.

Rosie


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